me and june 22

with the help of clonazepam, i was able to get the most sleep i’ve gotten in a while – 5 hours. and then up early to fight houston traffic to make it to my doctor by 7:15 this morning.

the last time he saw me i had been awake for over twenty-four hours and drunk for almost half of those. my face was red from crying and i made no sense babbling to the lady at the front desk, trying to introduce her to my brother who had to drive me to my appointment.

i think the doctor was happy to see me sober, showered, and not looking like i had just crawled out of the fucking woods with moonshine on my breath and bug bites on my eyeballs.

he asked me why i waiting so long to come back (after last visit i was instructed to return the following week or two at the latest) and i told him i hadn’t been able to afford it. he asked me how things had been.

‘i’m sick, sir. i’m fucking sick and tired of living. i’m sick of not being able to sleep. last week, i slept a total of eleven hours in three days. i don’t know how i am walking around and functioning and making any sort of sense.’

‘why can’t you sleep?’

‘ honestly, i don’t know. i get tired. i get so tired. but then i would drink dr. pepper to help me stay awake until i could reach a normal bedtime.’

(note: i quit drinking all caffeine early last week, except for unsweetened iced tea. a boy’s gotta have something, and it’s better than soda, by far.)

he sighed. he sighed just like he does when he is completely stumped. i have yet to ask him if i am his most difficult client who is still able to function somewhat normally. i might not want to know the answer to that.

we spoke of my moods. i told him there is little to no joy in my day, except when i take my adderall and i am not only tired, but also capable of feeling something other than despair. it’s a milder version of when i would do cocaine. it’s not like i am high…it’s like i am just normal enough that i don’t feel like trying to dry-hump the front of a moving semi-truck.

i told him that sometimes my thoughts will race – see previous blog entry – and that the clonazepam helps with that.

so there you go. that’s how i have been living my life for the past couple of months. pills to wake me up, keep me awake, help keep my fat ass from eating myself to death, and when the evening comes, pills to help me calm down from the day, and put me in bed without the hope of sleep.

he smiled. ‘sean, we’ve tried every mood stabilizer that i can think of. you don’t respond well to any of them.’

‘i told you i was fucked, doctor.’

‘since the stimulants seem to be at least doing something, i want to increase them.’

i will now be taking between 60 – 90 mg of adderall a day, as well as my 4 mg of clonazepam. he wants to try me back on 200 mg of wellbutrin. i’ve taken it before, but couldn’t tell any difference at the time, which is understandable, considering the alarming number of other meds i was on at the time. he assured me that i wouldn’t have to worry about gaining weight or any sexual dysfunction – two side effects that i have had numerous issues with, and will be writing about in an upcoming blog post, so get excited for that one.

which brings me to my sleep issue.

‘what should we do about this one, sean?’

‘is there any way i can get intravenous ambien by my bed?’

he laughed again. i must be one of his funnier patients, at least.

‘have you ever been on doxepin?’

‘it doesn’t sound familiar.’

‘it can be used as an antidepressant, but also has sleep benefits. let’s give that a shot.’

i shrugged. ‘whatever you think, man.’

see, that’s what i’ve become. aside from getting fatter and losing the ability to get an erection, i have reached the point where i just don’t give a shit about side-effects until i get them. if he offered me a pill that could potentially make me grow a pair of breasts out of my lower back, i would swallow it up and then deal with them if they arrived. risk of depression, risk of suicide, risk of hallucination tearing hair out crying and chewing on my bedroom wall, it’s all worth trying at this point. they don’t make enough medication for me to be picky for that much longer.

a perfect example would be to go here and take a glance at the side effects of doxepin. what the fuck, right?

but, once again, i have reached a level of despair that gives me two options:

02. i drink a half of a bottle of whiskey, eat a dinner of clonazepam, adderall, depakote, doxepin, abilify, trileptal, risperidone, and vegan chicken nuggets, and then duct tape my mouth shut – to keep it all in – before i pass out.

knowing option 02 is there gives me the courage to attempt option 01 for now.

we’ll just have to wait and see.

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6 Responses to “me and june 22”

Ahh . . . the meds merry-go-round, what fun it is!
I understand the despair, the desperation, just wanting something, anything at all, to help you feel alive.
And all the while feeling like a miserable, black guinea pig!
Keep trying, the magic concoction may just be the next one you try.
Take care ❀✿❀

God, can’t believe you live like this every day. The Adderall isn’t hindering your sleep at all? If I took 10 mg after 1 I’d be up all night!

I assume you tried lithium, nothing there?

Glad you keep your sense of humor in your pocket. It’s something.

Fingers crossed new med helps. After YEARS of med resistance I think something finally is working for me. Am in mild shock. So maybe trial & error after error after error will yield something for you. Hugs.

Sounds pretty awful. How long are you staying on the meds for at a time? I don’t know a lot about this sort of thing, but a lot of the things I’m hearing from people sound like their doctors are changing their meds every other week. I’ve had to be on a single medication for almost a year to start seeing any real change.

I loved welbutrin because I always lost weight on it and sex was not affected at all. Since you respond well to stimulants instead of mood stabilizers, maybe it will work for you! I know it worked for me for a while… then it just made me crazy nutty with zero sleep and constant mania. But stimulants now do that to me, they didn’t always.
Maybe this combo will do the trick… I have hope for you. 🙂 I miss you my friend. ♥